"Digirati demonstrated excellent expertise and performance throughout this project. They worked closely with the project team to deliver the requirements to not only improve the Department's online offerings to its stakeholders but also to enhance the intranet functionality for internal resources."
Paul Clarke, Project Manager - Web Rationalisation Project
Overview
Sector: Central Government
Organisation Size: Communities & Local Government has 3000 employees
Project Name: Web Rationalisation Project
Audience: General public, central government, local authorities, MPs
Project Challenge: To rationalize existing web and intranet systems and deliver new systems based on latest business needs
Solution:
- Use Stakeholder Engagement to establish requirements
- Undergo extensive Information Architecture review
- Deliver system migrating to a new Content Management Solution
- Integrate Web 2.0 elements such as blogs, wikis and webchats across both sides of the firewall
Results:
- Thorough User Research ensured a system that was fit for purpose
- Extensive Rationalisation of content led to increased usability and manageability
- Meticulous Migration Processes has enhanced the quality and consistency of content
- Comprehensive Process Mapping and Technical Design
- Ensured complex authoring requirements were delivered effectively
- Utilisation of Latest Technology ensured the department could take advantage of the latest innovations
- Complex Integration Issues were overcome to ensure that best of breed technologies could be used across the whole solution and reused for various sub-projects
- Effective Bespoke Development meant that business critical requirements could be met that did not follow standard product specifications
- Reliable Ongoing Support ensured ongoing reliability with a responsive service in line with demanding SLAs
Key areas of interest:
- Requirements Analysis
- Information Architecture & Usability
- Content Management implementation
- Content Migration
- Systems Integration
- Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0
- Personalisation (including email)
- Application Support
Technology
- Alterian Content Manager Enterprise
- Telligent Community Server
URL: www.communities.gov.uk, www.info4local.gov.uk
Background
Communities and Local Government (CLG) is a central government department with over 3000 members. It sets policy on local government, housing, urban regeneration, planning, fire and rescue, race equality, and community cohesion. The CLG Web Rationalisation Project was a large-scale enterprise content management government portal project which consisted of 4 main deliverables: the CLG main website, the CLG Intranet, the Info4local Portal and a system to facilitate the delivery of future public microsites.
Thorough Research
The 4 main workstreams were all delivered using our Delivery and Best Practices Methodology. As with all significant large-scale projects the first step was stakeholder engagement which in this case involved identifying and canvassing users of the different departmental subject areas. Over 60 workshops were held across 8 identified user groups. These workshops gathered feedback on the existing systems, user experiences and requirements, and feasibility testing for potential new plans and ideas. Card sorts were held within these workshops along with usability studies with wireframes and feedback of paper graphic designs. A Project Initiation Document was then created using standard PRINCE2 Methodologies.
Extensive Content Rationalisation & Migration
Functional and content rationalisation was the main challenge of this project. Multiple sites and content sources were rationalized, consolidated and then migrated into a new CMS system and infrastructure. The new main CLG website became a consolidation of 4 different sites which had each been running on different CMS platforms. There were also a further 20+ sites that also needed to be migrated across as microsites.
Initially a content audit for this was run which involved reviewing over 9000 documents and 20,000 pages and creating a new information architecture for that content. This rationalisation project involved extensive editorial reviewing as well as usability testing using sort card techniques and task-based tests. The first deliverable was a content map detailing where each existing content item would be located, whether to expire the content and/or to add/update new content. Content was then migrated automatically from the legacy CMS to the new CMS using our own migration tools. The content was parsed as part of this operation to add more structure to individual content items so that the new system would be far more dynamic and manageable.
Comprehensive Process Mapping and Technical Design
The authoring model for these systems was particularly complex as the authoring process was devolved to users from different departments and different previous sites with various access rights and authoring capabilities within the system. The fact that authors were not necessarily within the CLG network and required a variety of secure authoring tools made the task even more challenging. With a large amount of devolved users, granular workflow and access restrictions were a high priority. To ensure that all content is kept up to date an automated email notification system was built that notifies authors to either update or archive old content. Content is automatically archived if the users do not respond to the notification after a certain time period.
Latest Technology & Complex Integration
The core technology that was used for all these projects was the Alterian Morello Content Management System. A new area for Central Government Departments was the inclusion of Web2.0 features which included blogs, wikis, webchats and forums. These were all integrated seamlessly for registered users of the website and intranet using the excellent Community Server software and customising it to include wikis and webchats. This has successfully enabled CLG to reach out to communities in an engaging and open way which is an important part of the remit of this organisation.
The key challenges with the Intranet implementation centered on integration issues. In particular, a single sign-on solution was required that worked across user accounts for the network, CMS and Web 2.0 applications. This was achieved successfully and the solution even incorporates personalisation features so that users can create a dashboard with their favorite intranet services. Other features include a live news feed, an events facility, polls, quizzes, favorite links, and details of recently visited areas of the site.
An important area of functionality and content for the main website are the publications and consultations. A lot of functionality was built to process and display these documents in a usable way including poly-hierarchical navigation, multiple content categorisations and advanced search facilities along with the ability to set up forums to discuss specific consultations.
Effective Bespoke Development
The Info4local government portal is a bespoke application that utilises Mediasurface Morello's data model as a content repository. This system allows local government users to register their interests and subsequently receive email alerts if content is posted that reflects those interests. Information is posted by central government agencies using a custom built editorial interface. CLG authors save time by not having to use this interface as the content from the CLG website is automatically added to the portal. All the information is easily findable on the site and can be received by RSS feeds. The easy to use editorial interface is completely customised and wizard driven with rich powerful features for administrating the system and reporting. This system currently supports over 50,000 subscribers.
Reliable Ongoing Support
Further to the successful delivery of this project Digirati is providing ongoing application support and infrastructure management. The Digirati Support Helpdesk provides all the typical support service and CLG were suitably impressed with Digirati services to sign up to a 2 year Service Level Agreement for Application Support.
Conclusion
Digirati successfully delivered the 4 tranches of work over the last 12 months for CLG. These systems are now live and working beyond original client expectations. The project is an example of Digirati's ability to:
- Deliver large-scale enterprise solutions on time and according to client expectations
- Conduct thorough research / stakeholder engagement
- Perform large scale content and website rationalisations
- Handle extensive content migrations
- Implement according to complex business processes and authoring environments
- Work with the latest technologies and successfully integrate them as required
- Create powerful bespoke applications
- Research and implement the latest technology
- Deliver enterprise system integrations
- Create long-term relationships with clients including managed support services
